Mortimer Crane Brown Biography


	This biography appears on pages 534-538 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				MORTIMER CRANE BROWN. 

	Mortimer Crane Brown, who since 1908 has been engaged in the 
publication of the Spearfish Enterprise, a weekly paper published at 
Spearfish, was born in Oneida county, New York, September 11, 1857, a 
son of Andrew C. and Sarah Jane (Crane) Brown, who were also natives of 
Oneida county. In early life the father devoted his attention to 
farming and followed that pursuit until August, 1862, when he responded 
to the country's call for troops, enlisting in the One Hundred and 
Seventeenth New York Volunteer Infantry as a private in Company C. He 
was mustered out in 1865, at the close of the war, and then returned to 
Oneida county, where he was employed in an iron foundry as a molder for 
about two years. On the expiration of that period he removed to 
Jefferson county, Wisconsin, where he resided for a year, and then went 
to Black Hawk county, Iowa, where he carried on farming for eleven 
years. He then moved to Lincoln county, South Dakota, and followed 
farming until the death of his wife, in 1899, when he retired and 
rented his land. His last days were spent at Beresford, South Dakota, 
where he died December 23, 1907. He was a member of the board of 
education but was never an aspirant for political office. 

	Mortimer C. Brown was the second in a family of seven children, 
of whom three are yet living. He attended school in Black Hawk county, 
Iowa, and also in New York and when twenty years of age he took up the 
profession of teaching in the former place. In the spring of 1879 he 
came to South Dakota, locating where Beresford now stands. He taught 
school in both Union and Lincoln counties for a number of years and 
during the second year of his residence in this state he took up a 
homestead and in connection with his work of teaching embraced his 
opportunities for developing a farm. He married and resided upon the 
farm until August, 1892, when he removed to White Lake, South Dakota, 
where he engaged in the newspaper business, purchasing a plant there 
which had been established the year before. The paper was known as the 
White Lake Wave. He continued its publication until October, 1902, when 
he sold out and went to Sioux Falls, where he was employed on the 
editorial staff of the Commercial News for a year. Later he was on the 
Daily Press as night editor and afterward as managing editor, 
continuing with that paper for five years. He then removed to 
Spearfish, where he purchased the plant Or the Spearfish Enterprise, 
and he has conducted the paper since 1908. It is a weekly journal and 
the plant is equipped for all kinds of job work, small book work and 
commercial printing. He devotes his entire time to the business, which 
is constantly growing in extent and importance. 

	On the 18th of September, 1884, Mr. Brown was united in marriage 
to Miss Alma O. Cleveland, a native of Clayton county, Iowa, and a 
daughter of Jonathan A. and Sarah Martha (Mosher) Cleveland, natives of 
Massachusetts. The father always followed farming and soon after his 
marriage removed with his wife to Iowa, settling in Clayton county 
about 1859. He went to Black Hawk county in 1865 and there resided on a 
farm north of Waterloo. He died November 30, 1910, having for a number 
of years survived his wife, who passed away while visiting at the home 
of Mr. and Mrs. Brown on the 27th of July, 1889. Mrs. Brown was the 
eldest in a family of three children, two of whom are yet living, and 
by her marriage she has become the mother of three children. Vernon M., 
who was born September 12, 1885, is married and is employed in a large 
copper mine at Bisbee, Arizona. Percival F., born October 23, 1887, is 
a printer at Piniele, Montana. Clarice L., born March 23, 1903, is at 
home. 

	Mr. Brown is a progressive republican with independent 
tendencies. He is not bound by party ties nor does he follow the course 
dictated by party leaders unless he is convinced that it is the best 
course to pursue. He has membership in the Presbyterian church and his 
life is guided by high and honorable principles which make him a man 
among men, respected and honored wherever known. He has ever taken an 
advanced stand in behalf of those forces which he believes will 
contribute to the betterment of mankind. From his first connection with 
journalism his voice has been lifted and his energies employed against 
the curse of intemperance. When he took charge of the paper at White 
Lake there were four saloons, running, in open defiance of the law. He 
fought them openly and earnestly for ten years, with the result that 
the next year White Lake went dry and the rum traffic never regained 
its foothold there. He located in Spearfish in 1908 to find there four 
open saloons, running without much regard for the state laws, some of 
them having Chinese lunch counters operated in connection. He began and 
kept up a steady, consistent fight against this evil and in 1914 the 
city voted out its saloons by a majority of thirteen. In 1915 this 
majority was increased to fifty-three, and the liquor interests gave 
Spearfish up as a bad job. He suffered heavy financial losses in doing 
this work his business was boycotted and himself and family, for a 
time, ostracized socially; but these things only made him the more 
earnest in his fight. 

	The life record of Mr. Brown would be incomplete were there 
failure to make reference to his poetical talent. The Sioux Falls Press 
said: "It is no disparagement to other South Dakota poets to say that 
Mr. Brown stands first in the state as a verse-maker." His poetical 
writings have appeared in the Yankee Blade, the Smart Set, Good 
Housekeeping, the Midland Monthly, the Chicago Evening News, the 
Saturday Globe of Utica New York, and the Minneapolis Journal, beside 
various South Dakota papers. His poetry has a beauty and simplicity and 
pathos that appear to those who read it. It has the same sympathetic 
cadence which people find so charming in Longfellow's short poems. It 
is with pleasure that we append two of his poetical productions. The 
first, written after the manner of one of Robert Burns' poems, was 
occasioned by the expressed indignation of the south when President 
Roosevelt entertained Booker T. Washington at the White House. The 
second indicates his great appreciation for nature and his philosophy 
of life. 
				"FOR A' THAT." 

	"What boots the color of his skin 
	The kinky blackness of his hair! 
	Clear-sighted justice looks within 
	To note the virtues hidden there; 
	Though narrow minds may carp and sneer 
	And rage the cheap aristocrat 
	He bears a high commission here, 
	God's noblest work 'for a' that.' 

	"Is it complexion makes the man ? 
	How many fair-skinned knaves we know! 
	Must all be placed beneath the ban 
	Who boast not brows of purest snow ? 
	The outer garment counts for naught. 
	God sets his value on the heart. 
	True nobleness of deed and thought 
	Alone can eminence impart. 

	"Without, you have the fairer skin,
	Within, what think you, could you dare 
	To place your lives, defiled by sin, 
	Beside the black man's record fair, 
	His whiteness centers in his soul,
	Yours merely on the surface lies, 
	Beneath the blackness of the coal 
	Sleep fires of sacred sacrifice. 

	"Storm on, ye shallow minds, and rail
	In fury from your narrow path. 
	The man whose actions you assail 
	Reeks not your favor or your wrath;
	God gave to Booker Washington 
	Beneath the skin you murmur at 
	The strength, which you have never known, 
	To be a man 'for a' that."' 


			"WHEN THE LEAVES LET GO."

	"They dance to the touch of the wandering breeze
	In their home 'twixt the earth and the sky, 
	These children of nature that cover the trees,
	And they sing as the summer goes by
	Soft lullaby whispers at morning and eve, 
	That comfort the dreamer below, 
	And help him his whimsical fancies to weave
	In a way that the world cannot know.

	"All summer they beckon and call him away
	From the bustle and toil of the town, 
	'Neath their cool, dewy shadows in silence to stray,
	Or to cast himself lazily down 
	And, gazing aloft through the flickering light
	Where the tender tops sway to and fro, 
	To dream of the frost that will come as a blight 
	In the days when the leaves let go.

	"Our life, as a summer, is slipping away
	And its joys, like the leaves overhead, 
	That flutter so cool and inviting today, 
	One day will be pulseless and dead; 
	Then let us remember the springtime that lies
	Beyond the chill season of snow, 
	And thro' the bare trees look away to the skies, 
	In the days when the leaves let go."